


When I grow up

by oh_simone



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-18
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2018-01-09 03:32:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1140918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix is seventeen, and seventeen, and seventeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When I grow up

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this and didn't feel like posting. But then I had some drinks, so you know. Changes in perspective. True facts: working title was "Felix-- more like Feels-lix amirite?" because I have a pathetic sense of humor.

Felix is seventeen, sullen embers in his heart and bruises along the lines of his ribs, when Peter Pan comes to him on the midnight wind. Los Angeles, in a corner of the city where bullet casings from mob hits litter the alleyways and the sweetly nauseating seep of sewage oozes from the black corners, to be precise. Felix is slouched against the wall, huddled against the wind and trying his damnedest to light his pilfered cigarette-- the finely rolled paper neatly fingered off some distracted business man on the cable car earlier that day. The wind is sharp as it banks down the alley, and Felix's right hand is shaking, his wrist most likely sprained, and he can't strike the match for the life of him.

The match is blown right out of his fingers with a sharp gust of wind, and Felix curses vilely, violently dashing the cigarette to the ground as well.

"You know, in some places," someone says from behind him, "they say those'll kill you."

Felix jerks and slowly pivots on his heels, jamming his fingers into his pockets. Barely a yard away stands a boy, at first glance younger than him, with curling dark hair and a thin, narrow face, his body still coltish in his youth.

"On your way, kid," Felix drawls. "I'm no good for company."

But the boy just laughs, and saunters closer. His eyes gleam black in the gaslight and Felix takes an inadvertent step back because there is something downright strange and ancient in those eyes, and he feels his heart tap-tap into overtime as his animal instinct urges him quietly to run, run, _now_. But there is nowhere to go, the hard wall behind him, and the strange boy pinning him motionless with that knowing, derisive look.

"On the contrary, my dear Felix, you are, I think, rather perfect," the boy tells him, "You'll do quite well."

"What are you-"

Above them, a window rattles, muffled cursing audible as someone tries to jimmy open the jammed window. Felix stiffens.

"Dammit, that little bastard," they hear, words slurred and unclear. There's more, but the boy coughs delicately, and Felix looks at him. The boy cocks an eyebrow dryly, and Felix just rolls his eyes and sneers. Instead of backing off, the boy laughs again, bright and cutting.

"Come on, Felix," the boy says, leans in confidentially. "You could do so much better."

"Say," Felix retorts warily, "What are you on about?"

The window above them rattles harder, the voice louder. But Felix pays him no attention, because the boy is holding out his hand-- to shake? Except when Felix takes it, the boy's hand grips him tight and pulls him forward off the wall. Felix finds himself nearly nose to nose with the stranger, and he thinks vaguely that no, this was no boy, no ordinary kid.

"I can take you away from all this, Felix," he says, low and diamond bright. "I'll take you to a land where you are your own person, and no one will ever hurt you. You'll never grow old, and you'll never have to listen to anyone else. What do you say?"

"What's the catch?" Felix asks warily.

The boy smiles, pleased. "I want your loyalty, absolutely."

Felix stares at him, breathless. The window bangs open, finally, and his father roars his drunken ranting down at them. But in the next moment, he falls silent, gawping and swaying, because his son has been swallowed up by shadows before his eyes, and he doesn't know it yet, but that is the last time he will see Felix.

 

Felix is seventeen, when a year after his arrival in Neverland, Curly disappears off the island, the last of the Original Boys and Felix becomes Pan's lieutenant. No one asks where Curly went, and Pan never tells. In fact, after only a week, it seems like no one even remembers Curly-- Samir, the youngest, who used to sleep next to Curly at night for comfort, now curls into Felix when night falls, and seems not to remember he'd ever done differently. And Felix, who once hunted weekly with the other boy, is starting to forget the shape of Curly's face. Only Pan, whose eyes gleam obsidian black in the moonlight meets Felix's gaze with a curling, knowing sneer that reminds him the other boy had been no dream.

 

Felix is seventeen, ten years, and skinning a rabbit for dinner when Pan whirls into the clearing and drapes himself over his hunched back.

"Get off," Felix says, gruff, but not really minding.

"Forget this," Pan tells him, and reaches past him to still his hands. Felix breathes steadily, smelling the sweat, rosin, and dark, muddled hint of magic rising from Pan's skin. Meanwhile, Pan plucks the knife, still bloody, from his hands and flips it. The sharp point is a delicate blossom of pain against Felix's throat, and he freezes. Pan's chin digs into his shoulder, and he knocks his head gently against Felix's; the blade slides in and nicks the skin.

"We," Peter says thoughtfully, and with a touch of glee, "are going to have ourselves a little recruitment party, Felix."

All in all, Felix isn't sure Baelfire is quite worth the effort, but he certainly raises an eyebrow when the Dark One-- green, warted skin, lizard-yellow eyes and all-- seems to shrink from Pan's wide, toothed grin with an unmistakable air of fear.

"Hm?" Peter replies, once they are back in Neverland with five new boys but no Baelfire, not that Peter seems all that disappointed. He hands his cloak off to Felix who silently hangs it, then unfastens his ornate leather vest. The candlelight in Peter's private room in the great tree throws the tooled surface of the vest into shadows; Felix makes out a stylized figure holding a babe over his wide open mouth, about to swallow him whole. "Oh, Rumple," Peter chuckles. "He's always been a fearful child. Always clinging to things he should have long let go." Felix stays silent, processing the subtle hints Pan has thrown his way. When he looks up from folding away Pan's fine clothes, Peter is watching him unabashedly, eyes keen on his face.

"Do you think it strange," Peter asks lightly, "that I have a son?"

Felix's hand jerks, but that is the only betrayal of surprise; he blinks slowly.

"Not really," he replies, carefully uncaring. "The resemblance is remarkable, once you stop to think about it."

Peter throws back his head with a laugh, and the candlelight glints off his collar bones. He grips Felix's neck and brings him close, presses their foreheads together and smacks Felix's cheek hard.

"You're a good one, Felix. I chose well," Pan tells him, low and smug, before he releases him. Felix leaves the room, rubbing at his face where a red mark is already developing.

 

Felix is seventeen and has been poised on the threshold of manhood for twenty years when Pan destroys the fragile barrier he's cobbled against the frustrating halt of his slide from youth to adulthood.

The island has many dark corners and furtive sinkholes where boys can disappear for days and be unbothered. Felix has never gone off on his own into the thick jungle growth for longer than a few days at a time-- with Peter's own distressing tendency to jaunt off for weeks, Felix can't leave the younger boys unmonitored, for fear they'll sink the whole island into the sea. But like all other boys, he has his own private bolt hole where he goes when Peter and his boys become too much.

Peter likes trees and great, craggy heights, so Felix carves out a place for himself under an ancient boulder that was split in some great fall. He found it when he was seventeen and sixteen months, wandering lost and rain-blind in a storm. The ground had turned to liquid under his feet, and he'd slid against the rocks. By chance, he'd managed to grip the edges of the rock and pull himself through the crack to a dry hollow, musty with the scent of crumbling foliage and dirt, but quiet and hidden. The fallen boulder had crashed in a slant, so that a thick pyramidal slice of space had been trapped under its bulk while soil and green growth had crept up all around and over and above. Felix could stand at his full height under the sharpest angle, and could recline with plenty of space to spare in the corners. Over the years, he'd cleared out the dirt and dust, had snuck in a coarse mat and candles and strewn the ground with sweet rushes. An old sea chest pushed up against the wall contained a tightly wrapped bundle of oil cloth contained some dried foodstuffs and an old rum bottle filled with rain water. Just above it hung a faded, weathered scrap of paper advertising the sun and citrus groves of southern California.

Most times, Felix sleeps, assured of being undisturbed. He whittles bird whistles and arrowheads, contemplates the Los Angeles brochure and tries to remember how the music they played at the Coconut Grove Nightclub sounded like. And, because he is seventeen, he spends much of his time there touching himself.

Sex on Neverland isn't non-existent. Many of the boys shared bedrolls and lent each other a hand under cover of night, but Felix has never had (not that he could recall, but an ageing man living in London who'd once been nicknamed for his unruly mop of hair could say otherwise) nor wanted any of the boys, who always seemed too young and downy-cheeked. He's used to taking care of himself perfunctorily and utilitarian, facing the wall and silent, but in his little hollow, he takes his time, stretches his long, gangly limbs in an indecent sprawl and fists himself slowly.

He has his eyes closed and his breeches completely kicked off, the summer humidity invading even this cool hidden patch and sheening sweat over his skin. The only sounds he hears are his own, quiet panting that seems thunderous to his own ears, the rustle of rushes as his heels dig against the ground, his muscles straining with delicious tension.

And then, a soft, almost inaudible chuckle.

Felix's eyes fly open and he scrambles to sit up, except the butt of a spear slams into his chest, pinning him down to the ground. Heart thudding against the blossoming bruise in his chest, he stares, speechless, at Pan, who grins down at him from above, perched on top of the sea chest. He twists the spear in his grip, and Felix grits his teeth as the wood digs in painfully.

"Peter, what-" Felix tries, but Peter just tilts his head and Felix falls silent. A long, drawn moment passes, then another.

Peter's eyes are black, glittering stones in the low light of the hollow. "Go on," he says pleasantly.

"What," Felix replies.

Pan gestures at him, where his hand is still wrapped around his cock, frozen in motion. "Finish it." He grins savagely at Felix. "Don't mind me. Pretend I'm not even here."

Felix's mind has gone blank, but he's been following Pan's orders for far too long. His hand starts moving again, and with some dull surprise, realizes he's not gone soft at all. Possibly only harder, and the thought shivers under his skin and hitches his breath in his throat. Pre-come leaks from the tip of his cock, and he thumbs it, motion almost mechanical in his daze, but slowly, the deep ache of arousal is overtaking the shock of Peter's presence. The wet sliding sounds are obscene in the quiet, and Felix's breath has gone all but silent, mouth open and chest heaving under the hard pressure of the spear, but he can't bring himself to make any sounds, not while Pan's eyes bore into his, unblinking and unreadable. Felix breaks his gaze to spit into his hand, needing more wetness, but before he can, Pan grips his wrist and pulls his hand to him, ignoring Felix's sharp inhale of pain. Never breaking eye contact, Pan's lip curls a little, dark and smug and he leans forward, tongue dragging up Felix's hand from palm to fingertip. Felix's cock jumps and he can't swallow the faint groan that pushes itself from the back of his throat as Pan releases his hand with a smirk.

His strokes gain an edge of desperation, his grip a touch too hard, too rough but it doesn't even register, because he's caught in the black depths of Pan's eyes. Felix doesn't last much longer, and he comes almost angrily, harder than he has in years, vision full of Pan and his thin-lipped smile. As soon as he's done, there's no post-orgasmic afterglow, just slow seeping tension that creeps into his limbs and makes him feel stiff and uneasy. Pan grins at him suddenly, taps the butt of the spear once on Felix's chest.

"Well," he says brightly. "That was amusing. Now come on. I've got a task for you." Pan unfolds from his position, easy and unaffected, and deigns to wait until Felix sits up, a little shakily, before disappearing. When he's gone, Felix's shoulders drop and his mind is a buzzing hornet's nest of confusion and emotion and lingering adrenaline. He looks around his little hide out, which now feels too hollow and indefensible. He dresses in the ringing silence, wipes himself off with a corner of the mat, and goes to find Peter.

Less than a month later, Peter turns up one early morning, just before dawn, and drops a large squeaking, shaking bundle onto Felix. Pan just smiles, broad and tight-lipped as Felix pulls loose the drawstring to reveal a young girl on the cusp of womanhood, with tumbled brown hair and wide, terrified eyes. His stomach sinks and swoops and he looks at Pan with unbidden shock.

"This is Wendy Darling," Pan drawls. "She's here to provide leverage." And Felix understands, has seen enough of the slow puzzle pieces of Peter Pan's plan falling into place to recognize that she's one of them. But there is a sly, mocking look in his eyes as Felix climbs to his feet, roughly pulling Wendy to hers, that curdles in Felix's thoughts.

He sets Wendy up in her prison and brings her food and drink. But other than that, he never touches her again, not when he can feel a heavy gaze that follows him whenever he draws near her cage.

 

Felix is seventeen and almost forty years when the end comes for them. By the time they are dragged onto that fool pirate's ship, Felix is near wild with cold fury. He snarls at the other boys, those traitors and soft-brained idiots when they look at him tentatively. He'd always told Peter the boys were too childish, changeable and fickle and utterly unreliable, except that Pan always laughed. "Careful, Felix," he used to tease, "You’re starting to sound like a grown-up."

It's a hard, brisk wind that tugs at his curls and cloak, but Felix doesn't make any move to find shelter, continues to contemplate throwing himself overboard, until a slight figure sidles up to him with a plate of food.

When Peter's fathomless black eyes stare back at him from Henry's soft, boyish face, the utter victory and relief that wells up inside is knee-weakening. It makes him sentimental, in his own, brusque manner, and as Peter turns to leave, Felix moves his hand slightly, so as to feel the drag of his skin against his fingertips. Peter just glances back briefly, a flicker of his grin barely visible. Felix settles in under his cloak and rubs the pads of his fingers against his thumb absently, and takes a bite of the food.

 

Unknown to anyone, least of all Felix himself, Felix turns eighteen in Storybrooke's jail cell. He is, for nearly all legal intents and purposes, the much despised "grown-up". But he doesn't feel any different, because that's not how adulthood works outside of the law. In all truth. Felix is and has been more grown-up than most adults he's met. He's certainly cared for more children than any of these so-called mothers and fathers, feeding and teaching and looking after not one spoiled, soft-palmed brat, but hundreds of boys over the years. And he has never felt the loss of his family, not for his frail, dead mother nor his debt-ridden, dirty-cop father. They were of a past that he could barely bother to recall, significant only in the ways they led to his meeting Peter.

So it's not them that he thinks about when he's paralyzed on his feet, Peter's hand deep in his chest and that glimmering steel gaze set so unfittingly in Henry's honest face. In the space of time between his heart leaving his ribcage, his mind is only of Peter, who is the only family he ever needed, the only one he's ever chosen for himself, because Felix has always been not enough of a child, and more than enough an adult.

The shock of having his heart ripped out is indescribable, but when Pan ashes it over the spell, Felix stops feeling anything at all.


End file.
